The present disclosure generally relates to power transmission assemblies for use in automotive vehicles. More particularly, a power transmission assembly with face mounted bi-directional shift clutches is disclosed.
A number of vehicles have been assembled with manual transmission or transaxle products. Typically, many development hours and dollars are expended to precisely fit a transmission within a particular vehicle. Components connected to or positioned near the transmission have particular characteristics to function in concert with each other. If a different transmission is subsequently desirable, changes to multiple components may be required depending upon the scope of the change of the transmission.
Typically, many dollars and hours are associated with the design and development of the tooling required to produce the components of a particular transmission design. Much of this tooling is dedicated to producing only components associated with the specific transmission for which it was initially constructed. A design change may render this tooling less useful.
A number of dual clutch transmissions have been designed to automate the shifting process and provide a power shift between sequentially numbered drive ratios. However, these transmissions may be substantially larger than a corresponding manual transmission having the same number of drive ratios. Other vehicle components may require modification to accommodate the new larger transmission. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide an automated shift transmission sized to package within an existing manual transmission envelope to further advance the field.